Ford used the Chicago Auto Show to announce the return of two nameplates that were supposedly killed. (Taurus and Sable) The newly revised Five-Hundred, Montego and Freestyle have had their names swapped out at the last minute.
Continue reading "2008 Ford Taurus, Mercury Sable, Taurus X" »
Ford is close to announcing the sale of Aston Martin. According to reports the racing firm Prodrive is the likely new owner. The deal is going to close for $870 million, which is half of what Ford hoped to get for the British car maker.
Continue reading "Aston Martin May Finally Have a New Owner" »
Ford has officially announced today that they are selling the British company, Aston Martin to an investment group led by Prodrive founder David Richards.
Continue reading "Ford Sells Aston Martin for $925 Million!" »
Jaguar has been in financial trouble for years. The new XF that will come out sometime in early 2008 is the brand's last hope. The car is going to replace the slow selling S-Type in the lineup. Jaguar released a concept version of its S-Type replacement in Detroit, the C-XF.
Continue reading "2009 Jaguar XF...The Car that Ford Hopes will Save Jaguar." »
Ford has announced that they are finally going to show the production version of the Fairlane concept at the New York Auto show next month. They decided to not keep the Fairlane name and instead rename the new car, the Ford Flex.
Continue reading "2008 Ford Flex (aka Ford Fairlane Concept) will be Unveiled Next Month" »
Ford and Shelby Automobiles announced today the launch of the new 2008 Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra GT500KR. This is the most powerful Mustang ever produced and it is inspired by the 1968 Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra GT500KR.
Continue reading "New 2008 Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra GT500KR...The Best Mustang Ever?" »
Ford has announced the pricing and overall specs for the 2008 Ford Taurus (aka. Ford Five-Hundred). The new Taurus will start under $24k and will cost thousands less than its main competition (Toyota Avalon and Chrysler 300).
Continue reading "Ford Releases Pricing for the Resurrected 2008 Ford Taurus" »
Toyota's sales increased 9% last month compared to March 2006. This was largely driven by sales of the new Camry, the RAV4 and the Prius.
Ford has finally taken the wraps off their next "crossover" the 2009 Ford Flex at the New York Auto Show. The new car is supposed to fill the void left by the deseased Ford Windstar/Freestar.
Continue reading "2009 Ford Flex Revealed...too Bad its Just a Glorified Station Wagon" »
According to Reuters and Autoblog, Ford's new CEO Alan Mulally earned $28.18 million dollars last year while the company posted a $12.7 billion loss last year.
Continue reading "New Ford CEO Pockets $28 Million for 4 Months of Work!" »
According to the Associated Press, Ford Motor Co. is recalling more than 500,000 Ford Escape SUVs due to engine fires that are related to corrosion on antilock brake connectors.
Continue reading "Another Ford Recall... 500k Ford Escapes are Being Recalled" »
For the seventh consecutive year, Ford has been voted by readers of the Reader's Digest as Britain's most trusted car brand.
Continue reading "Ford is the UK's "Most Trusted" Automaker?!" »
In the first quarter of this year, fewer than 50% of Americans that bought new cars, bought from domestic brands. 48.9% of Americans bought cars and trucks from Ford, GM or Chrysler. This is down from last year and represents a continued downward slide for the domestic automakers.
Continue reading "U.S. Automakers Continue to Lose Market Share" »
Lincoln is finally working on new products for their aging line-up. This car is a prototype of the 2009 Lincoln MKS, which is bigger than the current MKZ. The MKS was first shown as a concept at the 2006 Detroit Auto Show. The production version looks like it is going to retain many of the main details of the concept version.
Continue reading "2009 Lincoln MKS Spy Photos...Is Ford Finally Getting Serious about Lincoln?" »
Apparently Ford's quality is now on par with Toyota and Nissan, according to a new report released today. The RDA Group has released a report on the quality of 2007 model year vehicles. The group concluded that Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles have the same quality levels as Toyota and Nissan in the first-quarter 2007 model-year Global Quality Research System report.
Continue reading "Ford Quality is on Par with Toyota and Nissan?" »
Kelly Blue Book has compiled their list of the top 10 coolest cars under $18,000. Today as the average car price is well into the $20,000's it is good to know that there are cheaper alternatives that are still cool to own.
Continue reading "What are the Coolest Cars Under $18,000?" »
According to a report by the Automotive News, between September 2006 and February 2007, 48.5% of Chrysler brand sales were to fleets. That is an increase of 10% from the same period a year ago. 44.9% of Pontiac sales go to fleets, which is slightly lower than the 46.2% from the year earlier.
Continue reading "Nearly Half of all Chrysler and Pontiac Sales Come from Fleet Sales" »
For the first time ever, Toyota has sold more cars and trucks worldwide than GM, in the first three months of this year. Toyota's sales for the first quarter rose 9% to a record 2.35 million compared to GM which only rose 3% to 2.26 million vehicles.
Continue reading "Toyota is Number 1 for the First-Time Ever!" »
Ford has posted their Q1 2007 earnings. The net loss for Q1 was $282 million, which is a lot better than last year's loss of $1.4 billion for the same period. Cost-cutting and improved sales from their European and luxury brands helped to decrease the overall lose for the quarter.
Continue reading "Things are Finally Looking up for Ford!" »
Automakers have just released their April 2007 U.S. sales figures. Here is the list of the top 10 best selling vehicles last month (in order by number of sales). The bottom of the list may surprise you.
Continue reading "What are the Top 10 Best-Selling Vehicles in the U.S.?" »
April's auto sales numbers have just been posted and almost every major automaker had a sales decrease last month. Even the Asian automakers that have been making headlines for their sales gains, took a hit.
Continue reading "Auto Sales Dip Due to a Slowing Economy" »
The Car Connection has posted several images of the new 2009 Ford F-150 during testing outside of Detroit. Spy photographers managed to capture photos of the different configurations of the popular truck.
Continue reading "2009 Ford F-150 Will Take on the Toyota Tundra and GM Trucks Next Year" »
Transmission maker ZF has announced plans to produce an 8-speed automatic transmission that will likely be used in future Ford, BMW and VW vehicles. The transmission called the "8HP" will be used in the new 2009 BMW 7-Series that will debut in late 2008.
Continue reading "ZF Announces Plans for an 8-Speed Automatic Transmission" »
Edmunds.com has posted a list of the most wanted cars in 2007 based on reader feedback. Out of the 32 categories you may be surprised which automaker took home the most awards....
Continue reading "What are the Most Wanted Cars in the U.S. for 2007?" »
In the past month GM has announced that their sales were down due to the slowing housing market and increasing gas prices. The automaker also stated that the sales of their new full-size pickups are not doing as well as they had hoped. Now comes word that the automaker is offering incentives to move the large trucks, since sales dropped 7% last month.
Continue reading "Slow Sales Prompt GM to Offer Rebates on Their Full-Size Trucks" »
The new 2008 Ford Focus has been spotted and as you can tell from the pics, it doesn't look much better than the current version. Ford unveiled the new 2008 Focus sedan and coupe at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year. It is nice that they finally decided to freshen their aging U.S. Focus, but why won't Ford bring over the Focus that is sold in Europe?
Continue reading "2008 Ford Focus Spy Shots...Why Doesn't the U.S. Get the Better Euro Version?" »
The Ford Explorer has been the best selling SUV for years. In 2000 Ford sold 445,157 Explorers. Although recently sales of the current generation have continued to drop significantly with each new year, mainly due to high fuel prices. At the same time sales of more fuel-efficient crossovers have continued to rise. In the first 4 months of this year Honda sold 64,951 of the all-new Honda CR-V vs. the 47,553 Explorers that Ford sold. For the first time ever the Honda CR-V is now the best selling SUV in the U.S.
According to California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the federal government may need to bail out U.S. automakers in order to keep them in business. The bail out could amount to several billion dollars.
Continue reading "Should the Government Bail Out the U.S. Automakers?" »
For years everyone has suggested that Ford kill of its Mercury division. The division simply sells rebadged versions of Ford products, that don't usually have higher levels of performance or luxury. The brand has been seen as a waste of valuable resources and a severe drain on the parent company. Lately Mercury has had somewhat of a revitalization.
Continue reading "Why Won't Mercury Die? Maybe it Has Something to do With Women?" »
Ford has released the pricing of the new 2008 Ford Taurus X crossover. The Taurus X that replaces the Freestyle in Ford's lineup will start at $27,365. The new car is basically the old Freestyle with a new name, more powerful 3.5L V6, and revised front and rear styling.
According to the Goteborgs Posten, a Swedish newspaper, Ford is thinking about selling Volvo. Ford who has been in financial distress the past few years lost $327 million from their luxury nameplates, which includes Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln and Volvo (Ford does not disclose the revenue totals for each of its luxury brands).
Ford and US automakers as a whole have been hit pretty hard this year due to declining SUV sales. Rising gas prices have forced consumers to move away from large gas-guzzling SUVs into smaller more fuel-efficient models. Well Ford's emphasis on its crossover lineup is finally reaping its rewards.
Yesterday rumors surfaced that Ford was thinking about selling Volvo and that BMW was interested. Apparently the rumors are false according to a Ford spokesperson.
Forbes has gathered what they believe to be the safest new cars on the market. They searched through Consumer Reports, Department of Transportation, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) to compile the list of the top 20 safest cars of 2007.
A new study by Harbour Consulting has announced that Toyota is the most productive automaker, since it only takes Toyota 29.93 hours to make a car. Nissan came in second with 29.97 hours and Honda came in third at 31.63 hours.
Continue reading "Toyota is the Most Productive Automaker but US Automakers Are Catching Up" »
Ford has been pretty slow to respond to the growing need of more fuel-efficient models and with the styling advancement of their sedan range, which has disappointed Ford's senior management. One example is the Ford Five-Hundred aka. Ford Taurus. The styling of that sedan is not only boring, but it also looks like it could have been designed in the 80's or early 90's.